


Not Even Death

by cobalamincosel



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Dead Dove: Do Not Eat, Explicit Sexual Content, Graphic Description, M/M, Murder, Murder Husbands, Non-Linear Narrative, Serial Killers, They're murder husbands i dont know what else to tell you, Vignette, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-26
Updated: 2020-10-26
Packaged: 2021-03-08 21:49:05
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,010
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27213703
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cobalamincosel/pseuds/cobalamincosel
Summary: “Taeyong,” Johnny says. “There’s a body in the basement.”
Relationships: Lee Taeyong/Suh Youngho | Johnny
Comments: 49
Kudos: 345
Collections: NCT Spookfest 2020





	Not Even Death

**Author's Note:**

  * For [taeyongseo](https://archiveofourown.org/users/taeyongseo/gifts).



> Hello! This is an old, old, old draft of what was supposed to be my Enrara 2019. I couldn't write it then and finally decided that this is when I just say fuck it and let it go. It's work that I've struggled with since I claimed the prompt mid last year, and I just really wanted to get it out there. Sometimes work doesn't feel great or perfect, and that is okay. This is me exhuming this story from its makeshift grave and finally laying it to rest. 
> 
> This story is tagged adequately but if you feel it's missing a tag please let me know.

_“…Most especially must I tread with care in matters of life and death. If it is given me to save a life, all thanks. But it may also be within my power to take a life; this awesome responsibility must be faced with great humbleness and awareness of my own frailty. Above all, I must not play at God.”_

_Hippocratic Oath, Modern Version, 1946_

-

Dr. John Seo does not concern himself much with morality or the ethics of things.

This is admittedly concerning given his craft, his life’s work, given the fact that he had raised his hand and sworn to not play at being the grim reaper (or God, or whatever name anyone had for whatever spirits lay beyond the realm of understanding).

Johnny understands that there are things that are not within his control. He knows that there are laws in place for specific reasons, to be able to keep chaos from taking hold of society as a whole.

He knows that being a person in his position—someone with a surgeon's hands, someone with an encyclopedic knowledge of human physiology, someone that people trust implicitly with their lives—means that he is expected to protect life no matter the cost.

He knows this.

He just doesn’t care much.

Johnny recognizes that he has dabbled at playing god in all of this, and as he sets the bone saw down onto the sheet, now rid of the blood from an hour ago, he thinks that maybe it’s time he settled down. Quit this business. Packed it up and went clean.

“Darling, can you please hand me the self-retaining?” Taeyong asks aloud from where he’s standing in front of the sink, nodding toward the retractor by Johnny’s hand and interrupting his thoughts.

“Here you go, sweetheart,” Johnny responds, sidling up to his husband and bringing over the heavy metal square in his gloved hand.

Taeyong runs it under the faucet, the congealed mass of blood caught in the crevices falling into the metal sink with the water, like wine being diluted.

Taeyong smiles at him, his eyes bright and shining, and tiptoes for a kiss.

 _Next time_ , Johnny thinks. _Maybe we’ll quit next time._

-

Taeyong Lee and Dr. John Seo marry on a summer day, surrounded by their friends and family.

The field they’ve chosen is filled with lavender lining the aisle, and Taeyong is resplendent in the navy blue suit that matches Johnny’s own, standing at the head of it, wiping tears from his eyes.

Taeyong’s father releases his arm from his grip to step forward and place a kiss on Johnny's cheek when they reach the end of the short walkway, to hand off his son to the man that will take care of Taeyong for the rest of their days.

The sun casts a tangential light over all of them as the officiator begins the ceremony, the whole scene bathed in gold and amber. A cool breeze comes through when the presider calls forward the ring bearer, and Donghyuck steps forward with a pillow that has two gold bands glinting in the sunlight.

Johnny begins, looking his gorgeous partner in the eye, trying not to let his voice break when he says, “Taeyong, my beloved, I have loved you for nine long years, a time that has been filled with joy and understanding, and the patience that I never knew existed until you showed it to me.”

Taeyong starts to shake at this, pulling out a neat white cloth from his pocket, and dabbing it under his eyes, some of the red eye shadow and mascara catching on his handkerchief.

“There has never been a day since I approached you that evening in the library where you have not brought a smile to my face, and happiness into my life. You are the one person in this entire universe that could and would love me with their entire being, and I thank the cosmos daily that somehow our paths crossed— and that you decided to keep walking next to me. Here today, I lay my entire life at your feet, and I swear that I will do everything within my power to make you smile, to see the beauty of the world with you, and love you for as long as you’ll have me.”

Johnny pauses to take a breath, to take the gold band in his fingers, to take Taeyong’s hand in his.

“I, John Seo, take you, Lee Taeyong to be my lawfully wedded husband. For better or worse, in sickness and in health, for richer or poorer, until death do us part.”

-

“Taeyong,” Johnny says. “There’s a body in the basement.”

Taeyong takes Johnny’s appearance in: there is blood on his collar, blood on his sleeves, his hair a nest on his head. This isn’t the mark of Johnny having come from a long operation.

This is something else.

“What happened? Was there an accident?” Taeyong says frantically, rushing forward to check Johnny for any injuries.

Taeyong is trembling as he makes his way down the stairs, less afraid of what his husband has done and more afraid of the corpse he’s been told is waiting for him on the concrete floor. His hands are shaking so hard he nearly loses his balance, almost missing the banister in his fear.

That is until Johnny had shown Taeyong the man’s scars— blood under the John Doe’s nails, hair matted down from where Johnny’s hammer had broken the cranium. That is until Johnny tells him that he had caught the man with a child in his arms.

Johnny had dialed 911 from the dead man’s phone, left hanging. The child is kept outside the dead man’s porch, too scared and oblivious to have seen Johnny well enough to ID him. Johnny waits nearby until he hears the police car come by.

The man was brought back to their home in a body bag.

“What are we going to do?” Taeyong says, eyes shining with unshed tears.

Johnny doesn’t miss the decisive use of pronouns. _We_.

“I-- I hadn’t thought this through,” Johnny confesses. “I just moved, darling, I didn’t think. I just--”

Taeyong takes swift strides over to Johnny, hands out to bracket Johnny’s face, to force him to look into Taeyong’s eyes.

“I need you to walk me through everything that happened, Johnny,” Taeyong says firmly.

In Taeyong’s head, this is both their problem. This is his husband. This was his husband’s decision, but it stopped being just his problem the moment he decided to bring that body into their home.

-

Taeyong holds his gaze, the widest smile on his face, tears brimming at the corners of his eyes. Johnny smiles back, full with the knowledge that he has meant every word he has ever said to the man standing in front of him.

Taeyong has the ring resting on his palm as he starts to speak, the fingers of his left hand fiddling with it, letting the words he has rehearsed for days flow out of him like a melody.

“Johnny,” he says, voice thick with emotion. “Johnny, when I first met you, I couldn’t stand you. You were obnoxious,” he breaks off to laugh, and a chuckle runs through the scattering of guests who all have tissues pressed to their noses. “And you were so self-assured, I wanted to hate you until I realized that there wasn’t anything I could do but love you. And I do, I do love you. I love you so much, I would help you hide a body.”

His laugh is choked off, a precious thing. Mark exclaims in the background “Dude, who says that in vows!” and Johnny’s laugh is punched out of him as he wipes a stray tear from his cheek.

“My darling, I, Lee Taeyong, take you, John Seo, to be my lawfully wedded husband. For better or worse, in sickness and in health, for richer or poorer, until death do us part.”

When they kiss, the sun has just begun to set, and applause erupts and surrounds them. They are invincible, inseparable. They always have been.

-

It’s disgusting work, taking a body apart.

Taeyong rushes up to the kitchen, gets on all fours to search the cabinets under the sink for anything-- drain cleaner, acid, everything he can think of.

Johnny comes in to follow him, and gently pries Tayong’s hands from the bottles that he’s got a hold of.

“Taeyong,” Johnny says, his voice trembling, his hands trembling. “Taeyong, slow down.”

“We can’t slow down, Johnny, we need to figure out what to do,” Taeyong replies, and his voice is even, controlled like he’s trying to contain his panic. “We-- we--”

Johnny takes hold of his hands.

“I have the tools we need, darling,” Johnny says, and it’s all he needs to say.

 _Disgusting work,_ Taeyong thinks, as Johnny lays the body out, and they get to work. It’s awful, the smell coming off of the corpse in waves, shit and piss staining the pants on this man.

He feels removed from the entire thing, his hands moving of their own accord when Johnny tells him what to do, where to break bone, where to slice skin. The man looks like a beast. He is tall, taller than Johnny, and so heavy, it’s a wonder that Johnny managed to carry him at all. The scraggly beard is matted down with blood and brain matter.

They have no idea what to do with the butchered parts, with all the mess on the floor. This is so messy. This entire thing-- so fucking messy.

Johnny decides on fire.

He takes the parts, scattered limbs, entrails, a lung, and he works through them one by one, into the furnace in the basement they go, turning it into a small crematorium.

He barely makes a sound. Taeyong doesn’t, either.

The man’s head is the last to go in. Johnny continues to feed the fire. Everything else has burned up, even if it’s been hours and hours and hours.

Taeyong is on his knees, scrubbing at the floor, the entire basement smelling of iron and ash and chlorine.

-

Taeyong is itching for it again.

Johnny knows when he is because Taeyong will start scouring the news for any sign of people who are wanted, or reports about missing persons, murders, more unsavory things. It’s how he catches his husband at the breakfast island, scrolling through his phone with his browser open, looking through the headlines.

There are two mugs resting on little crocheted circles, a project that Taeyong had set for himself back when Johnny was still in medical school. Taeyong had always been good with his hands, relished in being able to create new things with them. Tufts of vapor from the coffee swirl in front of Taeyong’s face, which is set in a frown.

“Care to share anything with the class, darling?” Johnny asks, pressing his chest to Taeyong’s back, slotting his hips snuggly against Taeyong’s ass while Taeyong wiggles slightly.

“It’s been months, Johnny,” Taeyong says softly, and it comes out partly a whine, which makes Johnny melt somewhat.

When he started this, Johnny had never, ever expected to have Taeyong be his right-hand man for it. He had never expected to have Taeyong mean every single word of his vows. His husband’s wry humor almost makes him swoon.

“There’s something,” Taeyong says, perking up, standing upright. “There was a string of murders two cities over. All men in their early twenties, all violent deaths.”

“Who’s to say that those men didn’t deserve it?” Johnny says.

This is always the tricky part, trying to rationalize it to themselves that they do what they do, trying to see where they fall on the morally grey areas, whether it’s going to be something that lets them sleep better at night.

“Well, you know that I do love staking places out with you,” Taeyong says sweetly, and it’s ridiculous because they don’t talk about it often, this awful secret of theirs. It happens every couple of months, maybe thrice in a year, just for the thrill of it.

But it would be disingenuous to deny just how exciting it is, treading these waters with his husband.

Terrifying, too, Johnny supposes, but he can already see their plan unfold. A stakeout. A thrill runs down his spine. It _has_ been a while.

-

Johnny likes playing Rachmaninov when he works.

Taeyong will lay the plastic out on the floor, on the metal table. He’ll make sure that the drainage system works. He’ll take out Johnny’s tools and spread them out like a smorgasbord for his beautiful husband to choose from.

Johnny prefers the bone cutter, he prefers the brunt force of the power tools that he uses for his daily craft.

Most days, Johnny pieces bones together.

Some days, he takes them apart.

“You hold the scalpel like a pencil, darling,” Johnny says, standing behind his husband, guiding Taeyong’s hands deftly in his own.

Taeyong smiles to himself as he brings a scalpel to skin, a blade 11, just a small one. Today’s lesson is control and precision, and it begins with the first incision.

“Once you break skin, you press down, then pull. You have to commit to the movement. Of course, you’ll find your own style but this is neat, and we both know you like neat.”

There’s a rush of blood inside of Taeyong’s veins as the rush of blood from the body lying on the metal table comes pouring forth. Taeyong’s cut through muscle, so it’s bound to be a mess.

“Perfect, darling,” Johnny whispers, his hands on Taeyong’s hips. “Now, again.”

Taeyong lets his hands move over the arm, cutting strips over and over in neat lines until he reaches bone and tendon. The entire arm is exposed now.

“You can appreciate the brachioradialis here,” Johnny points out, using a metal poker to push on a tendon that makes the cadaver’s hand flex.

Taeyong smiles to himself, relishing whenever Johnny teaches him new things.

There’s an art to the way Johnny takes people apart. He’s methodical about it, breaks them piece by piece until there’s nothing left.

It’s a contrast to how he is with everything else, where between the two of them, Johnny is much more relaxed about certain things: the bills, the house, taking vacations. But not this. When Johnny has a scalpel in his hands, or a hammer, or a saw, or a drill—Johnny is measured. It’s almost like a switch is flipped, and Johnny has a map and a singular destination.

Taeyong feels the adrenaline spike through him as his hands become more and more sure of their motions.

“Who knew you’d be so adept at this, darling?” Johnny laughs low in his ear.

“I’ve always been good with my hands, sweetheart,” Taeyong says. “This is just another venture.”

Johnny sighs, brings Taeyong flush against his crotch, and continues his lesson.

-

Taeyong is gorgeous, neck stretched out, sweat glistening on his skin.

Johnny thinks he’s never seen anything more beautiful than the crimson that blooms on his husband’s cheeks when he’s got his cock deep into the hot, hot heat of Taeyong’s ass. Taeyong rides him like it’s their first time, like there haven’t been years and years of learning each other’s bodies, as if Taeyong doesn’t know exactly how huge Johnny’s cock is. He’s always so tight and stretched out to the brim like it’s their first time on a college dorm bed.

Except this time, Taeyong isn’t dressed in ratty band shirts. He is instead bound across the chest, his nipples a dusty brown on white skin, in stark contrast to the crimson rope in triangles and knots.

It’s a simple design, shibari that they had learned from joining four classes with Ten and Sicheng. Taeyong’s arms are free to move, and he does move, his fingers stroking over his nipples, over his taut belly, taking the entirety of his length before raking his nails over Johnny’s bare chest. Johnny thinks he looks better tied up than when he’s parading around the house in nothing but lingerie because he sees where the ropes dig into the skin and make it blanch.

Johnny has learned the art of control over his body, and he knows that he can edge himself to the point where Taeyong has come thrice before he himself even lets out his first load, and it’s something that he milks for everything that it’s worth.

Taeyong is groaning above him, twisting his hips and moving his body like the dancer that he is, the muscles in his thighs catching in the candlelight.

He used to spend hours in their dorm room being cheeky, naming every muscle while he chased the words with his lips.

“I’ll help you master this anatomy,” Taeyong had said, back when they had only been dating a week, and he had meant it to be cute, to be greasy, but Johnny had felt himself harden in his trousers while they sat in the library.

Later, against the biology section of their dusty university shelves with two fingers shoved into Taeyong’s mouth and his stiff cock inside Taeyong’s ass, Johnny had taught him exactly how useful the prostate was.

Right now, Taeyong is keening, Johnny’s dick sliding in and out of him as he rises, falls over his hips, and Johnny’s control breaks, making him rear up to crash his lips against Taeyong’s, teeth dragging across bruised lips enough to taste metal in both their mouths, and Johnny knows that Taeyong loves it, loves Johnny like this, loves it when Johnny lets go. Thumbs dig into hip bones as Johnny shifts positions and he’s kneeling now as Taeyong keeps moving, thighs splayed on either side of Johnny’s.

Johnny rakes his teeth across unmarred skin, and Taeyong lets out a low groan from deep inside his chest, his hands coming up to grip either side of Johnny’s face, lips spit-slick and glistening in the dancing orange light.

Sometimes, Johnny feels like they are monsters when they are like this: monsters who like to devour each other, tear at each other’s skin, and then later, tear at other people’s.

-

Tonight, they have a man, early twenties, someone who was on the run, it seems. Not found in the news, but on the run nonetheless. Johnny had scouted him for weeks, followed him into brothels and into several states, following a hunch.

Johnny had marked him early on but needed to catch him in the act, because acting on a hunch was nothing if he had nothing to show for it. Taeyong would never have forgiven him otherwise.

Tonight it is a blonde woman, barely out of her teens, and when Johnny watches him drag her by the hair behind a dumpster, he makes his move. The ski mask covers everything except Johnny’s auburn eyes. The padded jacket he wears makes him look twenty pounds overweight. His shoes are three sizes too big for him. Johnny moves like a panther stalking prey.

The woman yells for help, but they are in the middle of nowhere, at an abandoned gas station. There is no one to hear her screaming—except for him.

The blade is swift, cutting across the trachea in one smooth motion, blood splattering all over her. She’s completely covered in it, and then he’s dragging the body away, limp in his arms.

Johnny watches her make a run for it, torn dress and missing a shoe. She doesn’t see his face.

When Taeyong helps him carry the body into the trunk, his husband gently swipes his thumb over Johnny’s cheek.

“You got some on you, darling,” Taeyong says, like they haven’t just committed another murder.

-

Taeyong and Johnny are good at waiting.

They’re both patient-- they’d have to be, to keep doing this. There isn’t much that you can do when you’re staking out your prey except wait for the right moment to strike.

Taeyong likes to joke with Johnny when they’re seated in their car, calls him “Hannah”, in reference to the King Cobra’s scientific name. Johnny will fire back, saying ‘Copy that, Black Mamba’, which has nothing to do with basketball and everything to do with _Dendroaspis polylepis._ Johnny knows they can’t stand each other sometimes, and it makes his nose crinkle when Taeyong will roll his eyes while he pulls on black latex gloves and smacks him on the arm.

There’s something about seeing Taeyong holding a dagger that really, really turns Johnny on, and he would explore it more if they weren’t waiting for this forty-something man to come out from the truck stop bathroom. They’re still working on their method, but they haven’t gotten caught yet.

Their plan of action is to use Taeyong as bait. The man’s victims seem to fit his profile. Johnny had been adamant about not doing it. Taeyong had threatened divorce if Johnny didn’t let him. An empty threat, of course, something that they both were well aware of, but it still made Johnny’s stomach drop. Taeyong had said, “When we decided to do this together, darling, you promised me that you would trust my judgement.” Johnny had had no choice but to hang his head, rest his hands on the counter, and sigh.

“You’re right,” Johnny had replied. “You’re right. You fit the bill, baby.”

Johnny cracks his neck.

"Are you ready?"

Taeyong leans in for a kiss, a long, languid one, a slide of lips over Johnny's own.

"It's time for a hunt," Taeyong says with a smile, and opens the car door.

-

Johnny and Taeyong lead lives that are peaceful. No one bothers them, and they only ever bother the ones that they think deserve to be shaken up.

It should shake Taeyong, how seamlessly they have come to adjust to this new... hobby of theirs.

Sinister, yes, but he can longer deny the rush it gives him. Johnny is good at destroying people. He'd known this the first time he'd kissed Johnny, the first time they had fucked and he'd taken Taeyong apart with his hands and his mouth and rocked into his body hard and deep.

"Devastating," Johnny had whispered after Taeyong had orgasmed and spent his release all over his chest and Johnny's neck like a collar.

The rush here is different. Intoxicating like nothing else Taeyong has ever tried before. Who would have thought that marrying Johnny Seo would unlock a part of him he had never thought was possible?

It’s like he needs it now. It sustains him, and he knows that it does the same for Johnny. Knows that Johnny has the same rush, the same heady feeling when they come in for the kill. Taeyong has always thought his husband beautiful, but nothing compares to his exquisite beauty when they’re both in the basement under the harsh white light, and Johnny hums along to his music while he’s elbow-deep in entrails.

-

Taeyong walks into the bathroom and sees the man they've been studying. He looks like any other person that could pass them on the street: average height, average weight, hair a little greasy, peppered black and white. He reeks of liquor.

Taeyong walks toward the urinal, careful to lock eyes with the man, to show him he's interested. This is how these things go. Lingering looks, suggestive passes. Taeyong is familiar.

He unzips his jeans, holds himself to urinate. Waits, as he does so. The man walks over, stands by the urinal next to him.

The man glances at Taeyong's dick, and then at Taeyong's face as he finishes. He's caught his eye. Taeyong thinks about the sheathed dagger tucked into the back of his jeans. The man moves into one of the cubicles. Everything smells like piss, and Taeyong has to work to not gag. It's likely that this man will have his hands on Taeyong, but if he's lucky, he'll be able to come in for the kill before he gets too handsy.

Taeyong washes his hands, and then follows suit.

The man is on him the moment he slips into the cubicle and it's disgusting, but Taeyong hides his disgust well. He's good at this, and the ending will be worth it.

This man likes his boys young, and Taeyong works that to his advantage, pitching his voice up a little as the man attacks his neck with what he thinks is a sexy move, but is actually just saliva and teeth. Taeyong is glad the man cannot see his expression.

"Oh, baby, you smell so good," the man says, curling his hands over Taeyong's waist. Taeyong closes his eyes, frowns, and forces out a moan that he hopes is half-convincing.

"I taste even better," Taeyong says, his voice higher than he normally talks.

The man is turned on, Taeyong can feel his hardness pressing into his hip. Taeyong angles his own crotch away from him. He's soft as hell. There's no way to fake that, no matter what this man tries. Taeyong just needs him disarmed.

So he disarms him.

He takes the man by the crotch and the man ruts into his hand for purchase. Taeyong risks a glance at his watch. 15 minutes have elapsed since he'd stepped out of their car. He needs to get a move on, otherwise, Johnny will step in at the 20-minute mark—a stopgap measure in case things go awry. Not that they ever have, but one can't be too careful.

Taeyong makes quick work of the man's cargo pants, and his hard dick flops into Taeyong's hand unceremoniously, making the man cry out. Taeyong flips them over, presses the man up against the cubicle door that rattles dangerously from the force of it.

"Oooh, you're a feisty one, aren't you, kitten?" the man peers.

This makes Taeyong's blood boil. Who else has this man talked down like this, as if he has any claim?

Taeyong doesn't answer, he simply spits in his hand and starts to jack the man off. The man throws his head back, thumping against the wall. Taeyong smiles to himself.

The perfect prey.

There is no way to avoid the mess, it seems, when he cuts through the man's jugular, precise like Johnny had taught him. He steps away from the spray of blood that nearly hits him in the face. The dagger is in his hand and he brings it close to the man's right carotid as he flails and flails for purchase. The betrayal and the anger in his eyes make Taeyong's body sing.

"This is how you like them, right?" Taeyong says. "All the other boys whose bodies you laid to waste?"

The light in the man's eyes is frantic, the "How did you know?" gurgling out of his mouth, the blood coming in waves from the man's still-beating heart. The darkness will set in momentarily as his brain starves for oxygen. Shame that its conduit from his cardiovascular system is out of commission.

He'll have to make quick work. Good thing Johnny is parked right outside.

He takes the man's jacket and wraps it around his neck, just to stem the flow.Taeyong hates mess, and hates that they'll have to clean up before getting the fuck out of here, but it's part of the job. He drags the man out of the cubicle by inserting his hands under the man's armpits and pulling him across the floor. He lays the dying man next to the entrance, and sticks his head out to signal that he's coming out.

Johnny pops the trunk open. Steps out of the driver's seat.

His husband strides into the restroom and hauls their victim up over his shoulder, out into the barely-lit world, and into their car.

Taeyong strides back in with a pail and a massive bottle of chlorine. He fills the pail with water from the corner of the room meant for the cleaning staff. Old mops and moldy sponges litter the small area. He throws chlorine over the walls of the cubicle he occupied, as well as the floor, and throws water over it to dilute the blood.

This man is a nobody-- no family, no job, no friends, a person who exists and wreaks havoc on young boys and then takes them apart and buries them in his family's old backyard. No one will think to look for traces of him in a public restroom.

The perfect prey, indeed.

-

“Good morning, darling,” Taeyong says from where he’s standing in front of the cutting board, russet potatoes being peeled carefully in his hands.

Johnny walks over to him, watches his husband’s face carefully. Taeyong’s eyes are bright, his expression serene. His hair is getting longer, Johnny thinks. He’s been wearing it longer lately. It’s a nice change.

“Did you sleep okay?” Johnny asks, taking a seat on one of the high chairs situated in front of the marble top counter.

Taeyong smiles at him, the softest blush on the apples of his cheeks. “You know I did.”

Johnny does know. They’d spent hours in the basement with Johnny’s bone saw and the number 15 blades on his scalpel. The victim had been a little difficult to take apart—there was too much fat everywhere, the yellow, oily slickness of it once the layers of skin had been cut through making it nearly impossible to get a good, solid grip, but they’d relented.

Taeyong had laughed when Johnny had taught him how to take the osteotome and mallet, watched as the femoral head had subluxed from its socket. His husband was a vicious, vicious, beautiful wonder.

Johnny makes his way around the counter, wraps his arms around Taeyong’s waist, and presses a kiss to Taeyong’s ear.

“Happy anniversary, my love,” Taeyong says, returning to his task, skinning the potatoes with deft hands that had destroyed layers of epidermis and fascia just the night before.

“Happy anniversary, darling,” Johnny whispers, and smiles into Taeyong’s hair.

 _Next time,_ Johnny thinks. _Maybe we’ll quit next time._


End file.
